Biographical notes

Luciano, during the primary school in the eighty years,
knows the world of computers only
indirectly, via the "Commodore 64" and "Zx Spectrum" owned by the
school friends. After it, the father gifts him a
used
IBM AT, with 640
KBytes of RAM and a 4,77 MHz Intel processor. With this pc he learns
to use the Ashton-Tate's dBase III Plus, with which he
makes some amazing things. In the meanwhile, it's arising the passion for the two things:
databases and the loss of time. With a problem:
The course of studies is incompatible with the second:
Luciano chooses computer science engineering.

In Military Service in Teramo (AQ) he knows many friends of Rome
then and returns in the Capital.
In 1992 he knows, in the elections' poll, Giuseppe Casarano, feature writer of
MCmicrocomputer (the most authoritative paper magazine in Italy in the
field of computer science) and expert of operating system IBM OS/2
(of which he'll become adept and moderator of the OS2_DEV.ITA), and - above all - linker
of MC-link. Giuseppe gives to Luciano
the famous Frank Stajano's "Modem manual":
a guide to the world of Fidonet and the BBSes.
The unbridled third passion of his life is born: the data transmission.
With a 2.400 modem, and 14.400 bps later, he frequents some of the most known
BBSes of Rome, among them the Sierra BBS, and SPQR, where he knows Alessandro Bucci,
sysop, Stefano Colonna, founder of the Telematic
Bulletin of the Art, and Fernando Carello, student
of engineering. With the conviction
that a virtual technical place of quality lacks in the virtual space,
Luciano founds BETA at the end of 1994, a brand new magazine of
Information technology, distributed initially through the BBSes, free, in an amazing rtf compiled format (the WinHelp).
As author, he knows Maurizio Codogno, and with Fernando and
Francesco Sileno they will constitute the technical excellence trio of BETA.

The 1994 is also the year of Internet and the World Wide Web, they
definitively explode in biennium 1995-96 with the improvement
and the spread of the Internet browser as Netscape
Navigator, that allows the design of
complex and attractive websites.
Luciano develops the passion for this side, learning well the HTML, the language at the
base for creating Web pages, and Javascript with Java programming codes, and becomes responsible of the
Hypertexts group of MC-link. He starts
to design the first pages of the BETA website, with articles and
the first rough draft of the review online. In the same years he meet Paolo Nuti and Marco Marinacci,
respectively chief of the
MC-link system and MCmicrocomputer magazine,
with which he begins the collaboration.

In 1996 he develops the first stable version of the website at the definitive addess
www.beta.it, then in
november it runs on the servers of MC-link thanks to the
partnership with Technimedia. BETA becomes quickly reviewed as
an authoritative and reliable online technical magazine, and the website is
known and visited from an increasing public of readers.
In this period Luciano develops the passion for the open source operating systems, such as the wonderful
Linux, he installs and uses for the Web development.

The hash is made, and, thanks also to the publication of
"the New Rules" di Kevin Kelly
on Wired, he's involved in the
New Economy's vortex. In 1998 it catches up an excellent agreement with
Telecom Italia (the italian main corporation for telecoms)
that, on the server of Tin.it, runs BETA, and participates to
the birth of Atlantide.

After that, he obtains an advertising agreement with Active Advertising, for the
exclusive concession of the spaces of BETA. In the same year he registers the
BETA magazine in the Court of Rome, entering in the narrow number of the official Internet magazines regularly registered.

Nel 1998 he founds Alpharoom, website for research and development on Internet projects,
where he describes some guidelines for websites' management and production, and the professional fees for developing
startup internet websites.

In 1999 he acquires, together with his friend Giovanni Antinori, a quota of the software company
NICE Srl, that in the meantime
was founded by Alessandro Bucci and Fernando Carello,
as responsible of the Internet division, carrying in
dowry BETA, that becomes a network of sites and
runs on the company servers.
In 2000 he develops from scratch and realizes ITnews, a daily
gazzette of Information and communication technology world
and the digital economy, and Handheld, a website dedicated to
the emerging world of mixed wireless products.

Incidently, he doesn't read the axiom, expressed by
the MIT, from Paul Krugman in "White Collars Turn
Blue" ("Consumers don' t want information, they
want tangible goods.") and he continues.

Starting from the previous website, he completely designs BETA
in dynamic technology. The website gets new face
as level of structure, flexibility and graphics, and it give a better consultation, with correlations
and intercrossed searches and services.
But 2000 is also the year in which BETA's
editorial staff changes
its shape. The number of the editors and the voluntary collaborators
grow until becoming triple, while more editors
write the various contents and the continuous pagination of the website.
The character of the editorial project evolves, the technical connotation increases to a wider
vision of the world of computer science and information technology.
New categories like economy appear in the magazine structure.
And with these, new commercial services
see the light.
The network catches up best results in terms of impression, and diffusion of the own specialized contents
to an increasing number of portals and publishing subjects.

The three years 1998-2000 in Italy, are also the time of the
portals: they expand like mushrooms, with investments of tens of
billions as well. Great editors, the venture capitalists, the
entrepreneurs, many companies come down in field. The new economy itself and alone
knows the boom of the investments and the capitalization of
Stock Exchange. It with to the enthusiasm for
all that that is Internet, provokes forming of the so-called
"speculative bubble": the business of Internet becomes - quickly -
overestimated.
After some alarms, in the 2001-2002 the bubble of Internet definitively bursts. The
entrepreneus look at the Internet under a different light and the
market enters in a phase of "consolidation": in other words, many failures,
the contraction of the ICT market itself, the
concentration of remaining resources, and the close of many initiatives that
do not cover costs and expectations (business plans).
But the increase of the Internet world
remains unstoppable.
BETA in 2001 closes a cycle, so to speak. There was before
that Internet became a conquest land, and continues to exist,
even with some changes. In this year, for several
reasons that's here superfluous to list, ITnews and Handheld stop of
being followed directly from Luciano Giustini, and, also
maintaining the plan they begins with, from the middle of the 2001 pass
under the coordination of the Nice S.r.l. The changes do not
interest BETA.it.